MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
WHEN I consider the varied functions which I have performed in life I am astonished that I have been so seldom offered bribes. There was an occasion many years ago when mention was made of a farm in Macedonia. I am to this day uncertain whether the farm was proffered as an " inducement " or whether I was merely being regarded as a likely purchaser. The circumstances, however, in which the suggestion was tendered were such as to indicate an attempt to corrupt. I blushed. I was young at the time and my blush was more startling than that provoked by 'ordinary ingenuous shame ; in colour it resembled those small red objects which bi- cyclists attach to their back mudguards ; and it cast a glowing beam such as that cast, in pre-Shinwell days, by an electric stove. The effect of my blush on that occasion was that the offer of a farm in Macedonia was rapidly withdrawn. Some years later, having been of much assistance to an oil expert, I was offered a small Greek torso. The man arrived with the torso enveloped in a news- paper and set it down triumphantly upon my desk. "There!" he exclaimed, "I picked this up for you on my way through Cairo." It was then that I espied the adder of temptation sneaking through the grass. I should much have liked to possess that torso and there was no reason why the oil expert, having completed his negotiations, should not wish to celebrate the occasion with a gift. But such was the strength of civil service tradition that I rejected the torso. The oil expert was embarrassed by my refusal. "Well," he said, "now I shall have to give it to the museum at Durban." When I look back upon these two assaults upon my honour I find that I do not regret my Macedonian farm ; it would have been a most unmanageable object. But I do regret % the Durban torso ; I regret the torSo very much indeed.
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I have often broadcast in my life and for five years I was a Governor of the B.B.C. I have also reviewed more books than I care to remember. Yet no listener, dance-band leader, publisher or author has ever offered me a cigarette case, bottles of whisky, cuff-links (gold), or even a china ornament. I once, on the strength of a moving article upon this very page, received a pair of pyjamas as a present from a widow in Montana. And before the war I was sent by a listener in Jersey a little viburnum. Even if I scrape my memory and my conscience with the finest comb, I can recall only these four instances of corruption on my part or of attempted bribery on the part of others. The little viburnum which was sent me from Jersey is now a flourishing shrub ; hitherto I have gazed upon it with pride and gratitude; but since reading Sir Valentine Holmes' report, and the comments made upon it in the public prints, my glance will wince away from it in guilt. It may be, of course, that the marked unreadiness on the part of listeners and dance-band leaders to send me cuff-links (gold) at Christmas is due to a defi- ciency on my part of personal charm. But it may also be that my ina'bility to dance, as well as my lack of all musical aptitudes, have detached me from that exotic world in which dance-band leaders flourish, since it would seem from Sir Valentine Holmes' report that only those who are members of the music and variety depart- ments of the B.B.C. come within the orbit of these lavish gifts. The Talks Department, the News Department, and the members of the Brains Trust, as Christmas succeeds to Christmas, remain un- recognised and unrewarded. Yet in the world of song and dance there exists an ancient tradition, so it seems, of exchanging presents. All of which comes to me as a surprise.
I remember after the first war meeting a Norwegian shipping magnate in Berlin. He told me that during the war he was obliged before his ships could leave their harbours to obtain a licence (or what was later known as a navicert) from a British Government department. The clerks employed in this office were mostly tempo- rary civil servants and their salaries were small indeed. My Nor- wegian friend was an immensely rich man and his business in war-time brought him enormous profits ; it would have been easy for him to offer substantial inducements in order to obtain useful priorities. In other countries he had found that his business was much facilitated by the provision of timely presents to junior clerks. "What seems so strange to me," he said, "is not so much that I never offered any inducement to a Witish civil servant, but that the idea of so doing never entered my head. That is one of the things which makes your country so different from other countries." His remarks induced in me at the time a warm feeling of vicarious virtue ; I felt proud and patriotic ; I felt that here was once again a demonstration of the deep moral principles by which my fellow countrymen are animated. I am aware, however, that all men are not honest by nature and that these deep moral principles, if they are to be universally respected, must be buttressed by the force of custom. This veneer of custom can easily be rubbed off. I have been told a disheartening story of what happened during the Boxer Rising in China in rnoo. When the international armies entered Peking they proceeded to loot the Summer Palace. The diplomatists in the Legations were deeply shocked by this con- duct ; for four whole days they remained aloof from pillage. But when they observed Ming vases being used by marines to keep their sponges in, their veneer peeled off quite suddenly. Some of them (but not, I think, the British) ordered out their jinrickshas and returned to their Legations with the jinrickshas weighted with amethyst and jade. This story, if true, should warn us against being too self-righteous, or too self-confident, about loot.
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Such comments as I have read upon Sir Valentine Holmes' admirable report have not always been fair comments. I have often deplored a tendency among some sections of the Press to delight in catching the B.B.C. out. In so far as this represents a reaction against the sanctimonious tone which the B.B.C. is apt to adopt, I regard it as a healthy reaction. But there are occasions when the publicity given to the incidental errors of the B.B.C. and the silence with which its merits are ignored strike me as downright mean. Nor do the public realise sufficiently that this most searching investigation undertaken by Sir Valentine was undertaken on the initiative and at the request of the B.B.C. itself and that in effect it represents a refutation of the wild allegations which had been made. I have met many people who are under the impression that the dance-band leaders are in some manner members of the B.B.C. staff and that the alleged- practice of plugging songs and tunes is a practice for which the B.B.C. is itself in some way \rebponsible. Even more curious is the assumption that, when the B.B.C. considers a performer as not up to standard, that performer has been "banned." If I write an article for a periodical and receive in return a slip saying "The Editor regrets . . ." I do not go round London sasing that I have been banned by that periodical ; I assume that the editor did not consider my contribution up to standard and I conceal the .humiliating fact as best I may. But if the B.B.C. considers a comedian or a vocalist too incompetent even for the Light Programme, then howls rise to heaven that owing to some corrupt conspiracy a " ban " has been imposed.
* * * * All sensible people, and all friends of the will welcome
the Valentine Holmes- report. These allegations and insinuations have been circulating for years, and it has always proved difficult to pin them down. My sole regret (and as a former member of the Board of Governors I must assume a share of responsibility) is that this investigation was not held many years ago. Since what, after all, does it disclose? It discloses that the particular section of the B.B.C. which has to deal with the entertainment world has allowed itself to be infected by the customs prevailing in that world. They are bad customs and must immediately be prohibited. I entirely agree that the B.B.C. in all such matters must be as Caesar's wife ; any custom or habit which lays any department of the B.B.C. open to charges of partiality should be abolished ; but it is only fair to recall that Caesar, unlike the B.B.C., was not polygamous.
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